Missed the Bus

"Missed the Bus, Mom"
This is the phone message I retrieved when I got home yesterday, about 15 minutes before the bus was due to drop off the boys:

Mom, this is Ricky. I missed the bus. I'm going to a friend's house who lives near the school. See ya!

I know no one who lives near the school. Where is my son? Why didn't he stay put if he missed the bus and I would pick him up? Why didn't he call my cell phone? Why didn't he at least give me a name and number?

I call my husband who is on the way home from school. I'll stay by the phone and Steve will drive by the school. Ron gets off the bus and informs me that Rick did not "miss the bus" but made a conscious decision not to get on the bus. Ron thought about it but decided it would be best to come home. Good decision by one son. Bad decision by his twin. Ron thought Rick went home with Mike, or perhaps his name is Steve. Little help there. Ten more tense minutes and the phone rings.

Mom, this is Ricky. I'm on my way home. Steve's mother is driving me home.

It seems that Ricky passed his Dad's car and decided he better get home.

So Ron's grounding ended yesterday and Rick's grounding started. He's grounded because of the lie - "I missed the bus." I've read that the frontal lobe isn't fully connected in teenage boys' brains (girls connect earlier than boys), but can we survive until those neurons start popping?

We had just talked to both boys about staying put if they are "lost" after a friend's 12 y.o. nephew wandered downtown Chicago from 2 PM until 3 AM. He must have had a whole flock of guardian angels because the police stopped searching for a lost boy around midnight and began treating it as a criminal case. The boy just kept walking, "Gotta find Mom." If he had stayed in the vicinity, the police and their bullhorns would have been effective. Of course, Rick didn't think he was lost. He knew where he was.